


almost, but not always

by minnabird



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, Post-Deathly Hallows, Post-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-10
Updated: 2015-03-10
Packaged: 2018-03-17 05:47:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3517694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minnabird/pseuds/minnabird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly considers clocks, sons, and hands that never move.</p>
            </blockquote>





	almost, but not always

They almost always came back here, their hands on the clock ticking back to  _home,_ through Hogwarts and beyond.

Almost, but not always.

Fred’s hand never left  _mortal peril_. Finally, one day when the sun made splashes of yellow on the floor of the living room and Molly felt almost whole, she climbed on a stool and unhooked the hand. She held it in her fist and felt it slowly warm. The other hands pointed in all different directions, but none of them pointed to  _mortal peril_. Not anymore.

There was the other time, before Fred. The fifth hand, Percy’s hand, had pointed to  _lost_. The clock, it seemed, was on Arthur’s side. It had stayed there - with only one short exception - until the clock decided that everyone was in  _mortal peril_. 

Molly was in the living room, Celestina Warbeck singing about  _hold me tight like Devil’s Snare_ , knitting needles clicking and dancing in time, when Percy’s hand finally swung, decisively, to  _home_. The movement caught her eye as she leaned forward to prod the stitches looser. She stood and stepped over the half-made jumper as it tumbled to the ground. 

He knocked.

Conversation was staccato, awkward, as they waited for the tea to brew. Percy’s smile bled out of his face as he leaned over his mug, glasses steaming, hiding his eyes. 

"Oh, Percy," she sighed, reaching across to pat the cuff of his sleeve, then straighten it, old habits winning out. 

He slid his glasses down his nose and wiped them with his sleeve, then replaced them. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. His freckles looked so stark, she thought. Was he too pale? Was he ill? No, just grieving. They all were.

"Your father and I forgive you. You know that," Molly said. 

Percy glanced up at the clock that Molly had not yet given up carrying with her around the house. She followed his gaze, then looked away, the words  _mortal peril_  piercing her. 

"It should have been me," his voice came, softer, more raw than she’d heard it in years. 

The wood of the kitchen table, under his fingers, shone warm with memory. There had been another conversation, long ago.  _It was me,_ he’d admitted, with the same quiet shame, the back of his neck burning. Several Galleons had gone missing, Galleons they’d needed. Now, what was missing was so much larger.

"No," Molly said, reaching across again, wrapping her fingers around Percy’s. He looked up at her and she saw the same little boy who had done so much to please her, who had once curled sleepily in her lap while his older brothers staged a sword fight across the living room floor, who she had seen withdraw into his room in despair at a bad exam mark.

"I lost a son," she said. "But I got one back, too. Don’t let me lose you again."

Percy shook like a building in an earthquake as he cried against her shoulder and Molly thought,  _I couldn’t have chosen._ But she suspected that grief could be shared here in this kitchen, just as easily as food. Only the months ahead could show what the Battle had made of them.

 

**Author's Note:**

> prompted by crollalanzaa on tumblr


End file.
